


a stoic mind and a bleeding heart

by satellites (brella)



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/M, Halloween, Multi, Parallel Narratives - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/satellites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Halloween is actually the time for everyone to finally take off their masks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a stoic mind and a bleeding heart

“Please don’t tell me you have sex with me just because you think I’m an asshole.”

Britta’s ceiling fan moves in an indolent spiral through the darkness, and the walls smell like patchouli. Jeff’s mouth moves against the skin of her shoulder and her eyes open a bit more quickly than she’d have wanted them to, because  _quick_  isn’t really a word she likes to throw around whenever she and Jeff somehow wind up drunk in her bed on a Friday night.

The way he says it is so sardonic and kind of mocking and so stupidly  _Jeff_ , but there’s some kind of dim desperation that lurks in the back, spilling out over her pillows and hanging at her ear. It scares her.

She sits up.

“What?” she asks, more tightly than she should. The comforter pools in her lap, and Jeff runs a hand up her bare side. She has to force herself not to shiver.

“Annie was really going off about it today,” he mumbles, like it’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. “While you were in the bathroom with Shirley.”  

“Wow, you were actually paying attention to what Annie was saying,” Britta quips. “That’s a nice surprise.” 

Jeff exhales through his nose and rolls over so that he’s lying on his back, his hands askew at his stomach. Britta’s eyes wander to his hair and her fingers twitch but she keeps them still. 

“Okay, so either I just hit the nail on the head,” he says slowly, raising his eyebrows as he stares at the ceiling like it’s brutally offended him, “ _or_ , you’re jealous of Annie.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Winger,” Britta barks, clambering roughly out of bed, trying to stifle the unpleasant pumping of her heart. He’s too close. Way too close.  _Because maybe it’s both._

“Or maybe it’s both.”  _Shit._ “You know, not that I  _object_  to having totally unexplained and unforgettable sex with you, but maybe we should…  _talk_  about this?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Britta mutters. “And for your information, I’m more than over assholes. I was going through a  _dark_  timeline, okay, Jeff?”

“Two days ago, yeah, wow,” Jeff deadpans. “Hey, do you remember that time you decided to totally humiliate me and say you loved me?”

Britta drops her head back in exasperation as she shoulders on an old Beatles t-shirt. 

“I was doing a great job of  _not_ , actually,” she snips. “So thanks.”

“Well, you’d think that if you can tell a guy you love him in front of an entire community college, you can at least find the time to tell him more about yourself than how many denim jackets you own and when you were last teargassed.” 

“I don’t think you’re an asshole, Jeff!” she yells as she strides angrily over to the window, which is maybe a step or two short of a total lie, but all she wants right now is for him to shut up. She pushes a hand to her forehead and the streetlight outside turns it yellow.

“Then there is something seriously wrong with you,” Jeff says flatly, and she hears a rustling noise that can only mean he’s getting out of the bed. His bare feet shuffle across the floor and she stiffens her shoulders. “But I mean, the whole asshole thing is probably way preferable to—”

“Okay, if you go there, I’ll sic Susie B.’s ghost on you,” she says sharply, and she means it. “Wasn’t this supposed to be all ‘quick and easy,’ doing it ‘the Winger way?’”

Jeff blinks neutrally at the floor. “Thought you didn’t like that word. Uh, quick, that is. Not Winger. Because you clearly like that one.”

“Jeff.” She glares wide-eyed at him when she snaps her head around. “We said we wouldn’t go there, _Jeff_.”

He frowns.

“Is ‘there’ supposed to represent banging, because I’m pretty sure the last time we said we wouldn’t go  _there_ , it didn’t end so well,” he muses, gesticulating vaguely with his fingers (she sees his thumbs uncurl sometimes when he’s not holding his phone and she wants to take them in her mouth and hold them between her fingers until they’re loose like ribbons). “But, uh…”

“Okay.” Britta cuts him off, clapping her hand over his mouth and smiling stiffly up at him. “You know how there’s a rhythm to these things? Let’s skip to the part where you leave.” The smile disappears. “ _Now_.”

Jeff’s expression stays blank, his mouth in a thin line and his eyebrows perfectly even, but he doesn’t move. Which is, all things considered, a personified giant middle finger to her. 

“Was it something I said?” he intones sarcastically, putting a hand dramatically on his chest. “Come  _on_ , Britta; I was just—”

“Jeff,” she interjects again, almost a shout, her eyes wrenched closed with frustration (and an oncoming migraine). “ _Get out_.” 

Jeff stares at her for an instant, blinks once, and his mouth stops being thin for just a second before he’s turned away and started fumbling around in the dark for his pants. She turns on the lights for his benefit and the brightness stings her eyes, and by the time they’ve adjusted, he’s already out the door. 

She turns the lights back off and sinks to the floor with her head in her hands. She’s so screwed. And not in the fun way.

* * *

Sex with Jeff is like pulling apart a knot thread by thread, tangling the frayed remnants between her fingers and tying them to her joints, all loose and red.

Being with Jeff any other time is like binding them all back together again, taut and shaking and sore, until they have to unravel again in a burst of light and sound, tearing and sinking to the floor, until her back is pressed to the pine and she’s gasping for air. 

And then they get to talking about it, what it means, and the knot is nothing but cinders, a string of all the things she wants to tell him but never will, never can, because she’s too proud. 

She’s getting really sick of this metaphor.

* * *

Abed has made a decision.

He and Annie have had a lot of Ship Teases this past year. He doesn’t know if she’s noticed, but he has. He’s noticed them every day and every crime-fighting night since her warm mouth had opened up against his and the torrential downpour of orange paint had sprayed into the ends of her hair.

He could pull a  _Say Anything_  and hold up a boombox outside her window, but that seems counterproductive since they live in the same apartment (and is there even a song that can properly say, “Annie, I love you, kiss me again, it was cool, we can be cool, forever?”). He’s definitely tried dramatically running after her in the pouring rain, but they’d wound up at the apartment again and been laughed at by Troy because it had looked like the sky had cried on them at the same time. He could also, arguably, make her dinner, but that’s boring. That’s Ross. 

Halloween is coming up again. He’ll be Batman. He’ll save her life. Then she’ll kiss him, probably, maybe. Or she’ll be blown up, and the entire city will blame him for it and he’ll have to go into hiding and then he’ll get his back broken but at least there’ll be Anne Hathaway—

Actually, never mind. He’s hitting a wall here. Literally. Probably explains why Troy is tugging at his arm and sort of crying, begging him not to hurt the finger paintings anymore.

* * *

Annie’s been faced with a very unusual problem lately. That unusual problem can only be described as an omnipresent desire to touch Abed’s face.

It’s more than a little disconcerting, especially because, prior to this, she had only wanted to touch Abed’s face maybe 23% of the time. You know, back when it hadn’t been that weird of a thing to want to do. Back before she’d known what he tasted like, what the skin at the nape of his neck felt like under her middle fingernail as she ran her fingertips through the curls of black. 

And it’s – it’s not that weird, right? Because Abed’s got a nice face, and he does an amazing Don Draper impersonation, and she loves Don Draper, especially when he’s Abed. Or when Abed’s him. Oh, now she’s giving herself a headache. This is so frustrating. 

He’s blinking inquisitively at her right now, she just noticed. So is everybody else, but they don’t really look like curious deer. Shirley looks extremely concerned, Britta looks terrified, and Troy is grinning like an idiot, for some reason? 

She squeaks and splutters for a second, shrugging and gesticulating, and Abed frowns at her like he can’t tell if she’s having a stroke or just an Annie moment, and finally the Anthropology reading comes back to her and she’s spouting off study facts again. Thank goodness. Close shave, Edison. Does Abed shave? Of course he does; he’s a bo—a guy? But his cheeks are so smooth, oh no, oh no,  _not again_. 

* * *

Abed has concluded that if he and Annie were in a post-apocalyptic movie, he’d give her all of his food rations just to see the color they would bring to her cheeks. 

He would probably die before the end, but all the leftover characters would tell their children about the things he did for love.

Fair deal.

* * *

Back to the Jeff and Britta problem, or, actually, the problem Britta has with getting too close to Jeff, even though they have sex practically every other weekend now and even though she has her own drawer at his place and even though all of her cats were curled up next to him the other morning (and her cats are like, the ultimate measuring device when it comes to whether a guy is worth her time or not – one of them had pissed on Vaughn).  

He doesn’t talk to her much during the week, after the whole Emotions Fiasco over the weekend. The pillow on the left side of the bed still smells like him, all expensive cologne and unidentifiable shampoo, not that she notices every night before she goes to sleep, or anything. 

She starts to think that maybe it’s time to apologize, now that he’s shown a sort of bored interest in her secret tendency toward self-deprecation, but she doesn’t want to risk him enabling her, because that would be such a Jeff thing to do: bang her and then talk about the various reasons why she’s the worst.

Britta Perry is not going to cry about it. She just isn’t. Friday is Halloween and she’s not going as a dinosaur this year. 

Things have to change.

(She sees Annie gazing glassy-eyed at Abed’s face during study time on Wednesday and she realizes, shit, they already have.)

* * *

Annie’s mind doesn’t really catch up to her actions until her hand is on Abed’s elbow, dragging him out of the lunch line. By the time she’s conscious of what she’s doing, they’re already outside.

She lets out a loud, apologetic gasp and wrenches her hand away. Abed is frowning protuberantly at her, his head tilted, one hand loyally clutching his messenger bag.

“Are you okay?” she blurts out, far too loudly. 

Abed considers her, his frown momentarily deepening, before snapping his fingers.

“Yes.” He beams. Annie doesn’t really know what she’d been expecting. 

“Okay,” she replies faintly, nodding several times before striding clumsily past him and going back inside. She tries to concentrate on the bananas instead of the phantom pattern of Abed’s sweater lingering in her palm. It doesn’t work.

* * *

If there’s one thing Jeff Winger prides himself on, it’s his uncanny knack for zinger opening lines.

Well, he prides himself on a million things, actually, but that’s not the point. The point is that he finds Britta waiting alone in the study room on Thursday afternoon (she’s been getting there early lately, probably because she knows he’s always late) and he immediately knows exactly what to toss out to get the ball rolling in his favor.

“Hi,” he says, loping in to sit kitty-corner to her. 

She closes her eyes as though trawling for patience.

“Hi,” she mutters back, folding her arms and pointedly staring at the opposite wall. After a moment, she adds, “Thought you’d be too hung over to remember what kind of sort of happened on Sunday.”

“Judging by my general demeanor and outlook on life, I’d say I’m so permanently hung over that the sensation’s been rendered nonexistent,” he retorts flatly. It’s basically true. “But yeah, I remember. I especially remember the part where I, being perceptive and mature, suggested we talk about it, and you, being totally  _not_ mature, threw me out before one of your cats even got the chance to chew on my shoes.”

“God, do you always have to talk so much?” Britta exclaims hotly, throwing her arms back out again in a kinetic burst of frustration. 

“It’s a pretty useful fallback for when I don’t want to hear things.” 

(There’s something you should know about Jeff. The reason he’s always on his phone isn’t because he’s always texting some unseen person. It’s because he’s typing up all the things he should be saying and doing in any given instant, but that he wouldn’t say or do in a million years. He isn’t going to touch it during this conversation because he absolutely has to be upfront and disregard all the  _wouldn’ts_ , just like Britta taught him.)

“Well, hear  _this_ , Jeff,” she snarls, slamming her hands onto the table and whirling on him, her blonde curls cascading furiously over one shoulder, her jaw tight as she grinds out the words. “You had your chance at commitment, and you decided to give it to Professor Hater, and maybe for a while it hurt and it sucked but I was able to make myself understand that I didn’t mean much to you, and that’s fine now, because y’know what? I’m beyond done with waiting for you to get your priorities straight!”

“Wow, Professor Hater!” he talks over her. “You come up with that all by yourself?”

“You wanna keep having sex?” she plows on ferociously. “That is  _fine_  by me, as long as you don’t try to make it into something it’s not – something that’s all—real and sensitive and all that crap you swore off the second you decided you wanted a free ticket into my pants with no strings attached!”

“What the hell happened to you?” he murmurs, and his voice is so  _quiet_ ; it throws her off. She stills, her shoulders loosening, and her stomach wrings tightly at the bewildered quality in the edges of his eyes as he stares straight at her, because it’s so much more than the charming apathy she’s so used to seeing. “A free ticket into your pants? Since when is that something you even carried around?” 

“Probably somewhere between the time this smarmy narcissist in a leather jacket tried finagling me into studying with him,” she barks, “and the time he gave me flowers after I embarrassed myself in front of an entire—”

“Whoa, if we’re getting onto the embarrassment train, can we make a stop at the Love Declaration station?” Jeff butts in bitterly. “Because I think we  _really_  need to set our baggage down there for a while.”

“I don’t have any baggage,” she spits.

“Oh, for the love of—” He slams his palms onto his forehead and scrubs his face, leaning back in the chair and clenching his jaw. Britta holds her breath, waits, curls her fingers in until the joints go white.

He lowers his hands after a while, and the unreadable expression she’s so accustomed to seeing is back again. Slowly, he shifts forward, rests his loose fists on the surface of the table, and exhales. It’s soft and drawn-out and Britta bites her lip subtly when she knows he’s not looking.

“Britta,” he finally says, so quietly that she almost doesn’t hear him, like he’s talking to a child, “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’ve been carrying your baggage for a while here and I haven’t even tried opening it up and looking inside, because I like to think I’m a decent person.”

“You like to think a lot of things about yourself, don’t you, Jeff?” she sneers, and she can tell that it stings because he blinks a bit too tightly and the rest of his face doesn’t follow it. 

He opens his mouth and she braces herself, but just then, the door swings open and Abed comes loping in with Troy beside him and Annie bouncing in their wake, and Troy is loudly explaining exactly why  _A League of Their Own_ scared him as a child, and Britta knows right then and there that the conversation is gone. 

Her stomach lurches. She isn’t sure if she’s relieved or not. 

“Hi guys,” Abed chirps, giving her and Jeff a tiny wave as he plops down into his seat. Annie is silent, frowning at Britta, and Troy has moved on to the trauma inflicted on him by  _The Little Mermaid_  (“It was daycare, okay?!”). 

“Hi,” Britta croaks, eyes darting to Jeff. He’s taken out his phone in the time since the other three had come in, and his face is blank and bored, never once tilting up from the luminescent screen. 

“Is everything okay?” Abed asks, sounding about 1% concerned. “Are you going through a Third Act Misunderstanding?”

“Everything’s fine, Abed,” Jeff deadpans without looking up. 

“Okay,” Abed says meekly, folding his hands and wriggling down into his chair.

“No.”

Everyone freezes, except Jeff, whose thumbs fly over the keyboard at an alarming speed. Britta blinks. All eyes are on her, wide and expectant, and judging by the buzz in the back of her throat, she’d been the one who’d just spoken without even thinking about it. 

“No, everything’s not fine,” her voice intones again, indistinct to her ears. She blinks again, harder, trying to catch up to it. “Jeff?”

He doesn’t respond at first. Annie is chewing her lip. Finally, after a thick pause, he sets his phone down and leans forward, eyes cast down; when he brings them up to meet hers, his expression hasn’t changed, except that his eyebrows are raised a little higher and that means he’s about to say something either very rude or very perfect.

“Everything,” he murmurs, quietly, in a tone so laden with sardonics that she could probably cut it with a butter knife, “is  _fine_.” 

She’s stood up and strode out of the study room before she can even think to move her feet. Okay, so everything is fine. Everything is fine. Everything has always been fine between her and Jeff, and at the same time, magnificently  _not_  fine, and maybe it’s time to talk about it, because Jeff Winger never listens or hears; he only speaks and speaks until the silence is lost to his inflections—

But she keeps walking, and walks, and walks, and walks. She winds up in the theatre where she’d had her dance recital, and it’s empty, so she sits down in one of the seats at the back and maybe her face screws up a little, but no wetness comes out of her eyes because she’s not going to be _that_  chick. Not this time.

She’s Britta Perry, People’s Champion. Always and forever. One tear pops out and she swipes it away. 

* * *

Dean Pelton is making Halloween a big shindig this year, apparently. Every single janitorial closet has a “BEWARE” sign on it and people are daring Garrett to investigate, but he (dressed as Spock) keeps refusing, trying to focus on finding all the candy hidden in the women’s tampon dispensers. 

There are streamers and a ton of fake cobwebs and pictures of Tim Curry in  _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ plastered on every wall, and Britta is dressed as Wonder Woman. Abed had hooked her up with a cosplayer he knew really well from the Internet and she’d just had to send off her measurements and within three weeks, a perfect costume had shown up on her doorstep free of charge, lasso included. 

She adjusts the crown and sighs, glaring at anyone who dares to stare at her as she walks briskly down the hall with her curls swinging behind her. She’s ready to dish out some justice, Perry style. Preferably on the magnificent douche who ruined her life with his stupid hair and his stupid smile and his stupid ability to feel more things than she’d ever thought he could. 

“Diana,” a gravely voice growls out beside her, out of nowhere. She jumps, whirling to her right – Abed’s walking in time with her, in full Batman costume. “You’re looking well.”

“Hi, Abed,” she says, unable to keep back just one little smile. He squints at her and she huffs. “Sorry; _Batman_.” 

“I hope you’re prepared for justice this Halloween,” he rasps, inclining his head at the passerby. “It may prove to be a dark year, but the League will face it as one.”

“Yeah, uh, totally,” she says, giving him a weird look. “Where’s Troy?” 

“Kid Flash has already reached the study room,” Abed tells her, glancing over his shoulder in feigned paranoia. “He has super speed. So.”

“Right.” Britta sighs. “And Annie?”

“I haven’t seen Miss Edison yet,” he mutters. “She refused to exit her room this morning until Kid Flash and I were gone. I chose not to ask any questions because she was being very vocal and I had crime to fight.”

“I’m sure you did.” She pats his shoulder and he recoils with a hiss that makes her jump. “Wow, okay then. Not even gonna draw attention to that.” 

They round the corner and she pulls open the study room door; he swoops in without halting and she shakes her head before following him. 

Pierce waves at them from his seat, dressed in a ratty grayish-brown woman’s wig and a drab dress with a discolored shawl, holding a knife in one hand. Britta’s eyes widen and she stiffens, but Abed has already leaped protectively in front of her, his cape spread wide.

“What’s with the weapon?” he demands. Pierce just grins.

“I’m the psycho!” he explains. “Y’know, from  _Psycho_.” 

“Everyone in this room should avoid using the showers in the gym until tomorrow,” Abed growls at them all before leaping into his seat, wrapping his cape around his shoulders and scowling around, particularly Pierce. 

“Thank you for the advice, Abed,” Shirley chirps – she’s recycled her Glinda the Good Witch costume, her tiara glittering as she simpers. 

“Aw, man!” Troy, in his elaborate bright yellow-and-red Kid Flash costume, pushes the scarlet goggles off of his eyes and stares sorrowfully at a compartment on the glove around his wrist. “My cupboards are bare again! What’s a guy with a serious metabolism to do?” 

Britta’s eyes swerve to the head of the table and something catches in the back of her throat like a needle and she forgets all about Troy’s metabolism – Jeff’s there, in a gray suit that makes him look infuriatingly good, staring blankly at his phone as his thumbs fly over it. 

“What are you supposed to be, random citizen?” Abed inquires deeply, cocking an eyebrow.

“I’m a werewolf that hasn’t turned into a werewolf yet,” Jeff deadpans without blinking. “Maybe at the half-moon or something.”

“Aw, that’s sweet; he’s werewolf-ovulating,” Britta says dryly before she can stop herself. Shirley giggles. 

“Whoa,” Troy exclaims. “That sounds dangerous. What is it?” 

It’s amazing how little he has to try to pull off the character, Britta thinks. Not that she would know, or anything. 

Jeff glances up from his phone just long enough to glare at her, and she curls her lip at him before opening her bag and starting to take out her notebook. 

“So the Dean certainly seemed excited about the Halloween Bash tonight,” Shirley trills, beaming as she clasps her hands. “I managed to hire a sitter for Elijah and Jordan so I’ll be able to stay the whole time!”

“That’s nice,” Troy replies with a smile that quickly dissolves into a panicked expression. He claps a hand over his mouth. Shirley doesn’t seem to get it. 

“Where’s Annie?” Abed asks out of nowhere, sounding incensed.

“There is no Annie!” a voice (that is clearly Annie’s) rings out from the doorway, and Abed and Britta’s heads whip around in unison.

Annie is standing with her hands on her hips as the door swings closed behind her, grinning brightly at all of them. She’s wearing a purple sweater with a picture of a cat on the front of it, and a few glitter-laden letters spell out “MEOW WOW!” Her hair is pulled back by a headband that’s the exact hue of the sweater, and her skirt is shamefully short (but Britta won’t complain as long as Jeff doesn’t start that whole ogling thing), and the knee-high socks are so  _Annie_ , and… is she wearing fake braces?

“There is only Mabel,” Annie finishes. She pulls something out of the pocket of her sweater that looks frighteningly like a gun, and everyone yells and leaps back as Annie screams, “GRAPPLING HOOK!” and fires the thing into the air. It smashes through the ceiling and a few chunks of it tumble down onto Jeff’s head.

“Wow, Annie,” he drawls. “Congratulations on having a more obscure costume than Pierce. Which, in and of itself, is what the Christians would call a miracle.”

Shirley makes a small noise in the back of her throat, her smile faltering. Pierce looks mildly offended and mildly startled at the same time, adjusting his wig haughtily. 

Abed starts clapping and Troy starts guffawing and Britta really has no idea what’s going on. She glances over at Jeff and, at precisely the same time, his eyes flick up to hers. 

She opens her mouth to say something (she isn’t sure what; she never has been), but he looks away just as quickly as he’d looked up, and the words fizzle out into nothing. 

“Sweater weather is better weather!” Annie proclaims.  

* * *

They don’t study at all. The Halloween Bash (called the Hallogreendale Bash, for some reason, and that’s only by the Dean and Garrett) starts at nine and they’re all there about fifteen minutes late, but it doesn’t matter, because Troy has sprinted over to the food table and fended off all other contenders within seconds.

“My metabolism is saved!” he shouts to the heavens. “Oh, baby, salvation is sweet!”

Britta manages to duck out of the eyeline of the Dean, dressed as Albus Dumbledore (the most ridiculously befitting costume on the planet, honestly) and stride over to hide by the punch bowl. 

She’s on her tenth cup of punch already, tossing it back like it’s something way heavier than strawberry and lemon, grimacing at the sugar-phlegm in the back of her throat. She thinks she sees Troy dancing in the crowd to “Thriller,” and Pierce is somewhere near him, wielding his life and doing his own shower scene music. Shirley is talking with Chang, gesticulating passionately as he nods with an expression on his face that just makes Britta super uncomfortable (so a Chang expression, basically). 

She grabs the ladle to refill her cup, but a hand grabs her wrist and stops her. Her eyes follow the arm to find a Jeff attached to it, smirking down at her. She pulls a face at him and yanks her hand away.

“You know, I might go back to hating you,” he says idly. “It was more fun.” 

 _North By Northwest_. Of course. The gray suit. She didn’t have to be Abed to know that. 

“What happened to being an ovulating werewolf?” she mutters, setting the cup down and folding her arms.

“What happened to wearing a costume so complicated you needed help going to the bathroom?” he retorts, his eyes roving hazily over her figure. She tosses her curls over one shoulder and juts her chin defiantly at him. 

“Growing up happened,” she barks, which is about nine-tenths true. “Plus I felt like it.”

“And when Britta Perry feels like doing something, all other parties step aside,” Jeff sniggers, putting his hands smoothly into his pockets and finally looking her in the eye. He quirks an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth stretches gently into a smirk and she can see his teeth a little. “Hey. Listen.”

Britta blinks at him. His smirk fades, and his eyes flicker a little, the way they do before he’s about to make a speech. She chews her lip even though she knows he’s looking. 

“I know we never made this serious,” he begins. “Or official. Or real. Or even anything besides super confidential, like, we’d get shot if we tried compromising the secret. So I really don’t have any right to treat it like it’s anything other than what it is.”

“And what is it, Jeff?” Britta asks warily, and she prays for the perfect answer, prays for him to say the words she doesn’t even know or understand yet but will swallow down with a kiss when she hears them.

He exhales, slowly. His shoulders loosen, and he looks her in the eye. With his head bowed the way it is, it makes him look imploring, and her stomach twists. 

“It’s whatever you want it to be, Britta,” he replies, softly, in a voice so vulnerable and opposite the self-assured Jeff Winger that undresses her in moments when they’re both just a little too drunk to think of the ramifications.

The tone makes her guts drop down to her feet, but they’re so light, so airy, that it barely feels like anything. The hollow space it leaves starts to fill with air that’s warm and salty like the sea.

They don’t say anything for a long while. People brush past them, but they don’t stop staring at each other, silent and still. After a time, Jeff cautiously lifts one hand and rests it on her cheek, barely there, his fingertips tangling just a little bit in her hair, and it’s warm from his pockets and smells like his favorite cologne and hay, his sheets.

“I—” she starts to whisper, leaning upward before she can even think on it, and Jeff’s eyelids lower and he licks his lips and the heat between them shifts, just barely, enough to make the floor seem to lurch. His hand guides her head forward and she closes her eyes and—

“What the hell?!” someone bellows furiously from the other side of the cafeteria. Britta and Jeff both jump and whirl around; everyone’s gone quiet at the sound. 

The crowd parts enough to reveal a burly guy dressed as what seems to be Tyler Durden standing with his arms spread out, gaping at an enormous dripping splatter of guacamole on his red leather jacket. There’s a large dent in the wall behind him, as though he’d been thrown into it.

Britta gasps. Abed’s standing in front of him, holding the now-empty guacamole bowl in his hands. 

“What the hell’s your  _problem_ , retard?!” Tyler Durden roars at Abed, finally jerking his head up. “This is my dad’s jacket!”

“Uh, excuse me, what is that dent in the wall?” Dean Pelton yells from several feet away. “Who is tha—is that Abed? Oh dear.” 

“I thought you were acting inappropriately toward that young lady,” Abed explains in his Batman voice, pointing to a girl dressed in a Dorothy costume who’s gaping at him. “She told you to stop, sir. You didn’t stop.”

“That’s not a reason to shove me into the wall and throw guac on me, man!” Tyler Durden snarls, his face twisted in anger. “God, you’re a freakshow.”

“I thought—” The Batman voice breaks for an instant, despite Abed’s lack of any change in demeanor. “I thought you were a bad guy.”

Tyler Durden guy surges forward and punches him in the face. A collective gasp shoots through the crowd and Britta yells wordlessly in fury, starting to stride forward. Before she reaches the scene, though – before Troy has come barreling over with his teeth gritted belligerently, before Pierce has started laughing like a crotchety asshole – Abed has turned and run out, his cape whipping around behind him. 

Britta shoves aside the partygoers blocking her path, but just as she reaches Tyler Durden guy and lifts her fist to punch him right the hell back, something flies out from the corner and smashes Tyler Durden guy in the side of the face—Britta gasps. It’s Annie’s grappling hook. Tyler Durden guy’s cheek is bleeding. 

All heads whirl to the right. Annie is standing there, looking shocked at her own actions, and she lets out a squeak before retracting the grappling hook and sprinting away in the same direction Abed had gone. 

Tyler Durden guy whimpers as he clutches his face, and the Dean comes bustling over just as the murmurs have started in the throng, lecturing Tyler Durden guy about etiquette when interacting with one of the Greendale Seven, and there’s a hand on Britta’s shoulder, and it’s Jeff’s, and she doesn’t move away.

* * *

It doesn’t take Annie long to find Abed. He’s crouched on one of the benches, his hands on his knees, staring blankly at the ground. Her heart shudders unpleasantly at his expression, but she walks carefully forward anyway, tilting her head questioningly.

“Batman?” she murmurs. He doesn’t respond. She comes to a halt in front of him and kneels down on the grass, gazing up at him. His eyes are focused on something directly to the left of her face. “Are you okay?” 

He sniffs. It’s the closest Annie’s ever heard him come to crying. His eyes look vaguely wet, but she can’t really tell in the dark. 

“I’m the hero Greendale needs, but not the one it deserves,” he says brokenly, half-Abed and half-Batman.

“No,” Annie whispers.

“Actually. No.” He’s all Abed now, blinking rapidly. “I’m not even the one it needs.” 

“No, no,” Annie says again, desperately, lifting her hand up and placing it on his cheek. He leans halfway into the touch without blinking. “You’re perfect.”

He sniffs again. “No. That’s definitely you. I’m not perfect. I don’t even know who I am.” 

Annie hesitates for a moment before sliding her thumb underneath the fabric of his cowl and gently, slowly pulling it back over his face. He doesn’t protest, doesn’t react, and she takes it all the way off, letting it rustle at the nape of his neck. He’s swinging one knee from side to side, still fixated on that mystery point next to her face.

She puts her hand on the side of his face again, her fingers spreading out over his ear, and leans up, pressing her lips softly to his cheek. 

“I’m a retard,” he says, his voice tight and wavering, and Annie shakes her head furiously, taking the other cheek in her hand, holding his head at either side now. 

“Abed, you’re not,” she insists, and her words seem so useless and stupid and she wants to hit herself, silly schoolgirl Annie, never knowing quite what to say. “I think you’re great. You’re so, so great.”

He sniffs again and leans forward until his forehead bumps against hers, and he closes his eyes tightly, his fists curling around the fabric of his cape. She breathes out onto his face and it makes his shoulders loosen just a little bit. 

“I’m frustrating,” he says monotonously. “I’m unconventional and I break social norms, but it’s not quirky anymore; it’s just weird, and I need to be written out. I need to be written out because I don’t know who I am; I need to be written out.”

“Abed, look at me, please,” Annie begs him. “Please, please, please look at me.”

He opens his eyes. They’re dry now, and his face is blank, but he sniffs again. Annie shakes her head and it musses his hair against the space between her eyebrows and she clutches his face more tightly, more adamantly. 

“You’re whoever you want to be, okay?” she whispers. “And whoever you want to be is fine by me. And everybody else. But you’ll always be fine to me, no matter what, because I…”

Her voice trails off. Abed blinks erratically, wrinkling his nose as he sniffs one more time, and then something sparks in the back of his eyes.

“Cool,” he says. Nothing else after that. “Thanks, Annie.” 

She closes her floundering mouth, giving up on trying to finish the sentence. 

“You know, it’s easy for me to be other people,” he says analytically, “because at least I know how to do it just right, because there’s only one way to do it. The way they’re written. And if I pick audience favorites, it’s even easier, because then nobody can hate me.”

“Nobody hates you,” Annie tells him. “Especially not – me. I…” She swallows. “I don’t hate you. I could never, ever hate you; in fact you… might say… that I… do the opposite… of… hating…” 

Abed frowns. “You only liked me because I was Batman. And Han Solo. Because All Girls Want Bad Boys. That’s why you want Jeff. That’s why you—”

“No, Abed,” she says before she can consider the words. “I like  _you_. I like who you are under all the masks. When you’re not even trying.”

There. There they are. Her sweater is glittering in the moonlight.

“So, you…” Abed sounds bewildered and Annie’s breath snags. “You’re in – in love with my civilian identity?”  

She blinks. “Um… yeah. Yeah, that – that sounds… kind of really correct, actually.” 

Abed considers this. The Batman cowl had flattened his hair, but it’s starting to stick up now, and she’d give anything to run her hands through it the way she had months ago as his mouth had cloaked hers and she’d made noises she’d never heard herself make before. 

“Wow, cool,” he says, sounding just perky enough for it to be considered happy.”That explains your wacky behavior these past few days. I hadn’t really considered it because I thought you were maybe menstruating early but then…”

His mouth twitches into a smile and he finally, finally looks her in the eye. The sentence fades.

“Big Damn Kiss?” he offers.

Annie’s smiling too, before she even realizes it. 

“Big Damn Kiss,” she agrees, and Abed puts his spindly fingers on her cheeks and steadies her head as he leans down, cape spilling around her shoulders like the night itself, and kisses her. Annie’s eyelids shiver closed. 

He’s humming something into her mouth, something beautiful and oddly dissonant, maybe their theme song according to him, their composer. Her hands migrate to the back of his head and she pulls him closer and his lower lip is curious in hers, and unsure, and fleet, just like it should be: unscripted.

* * *

Jeff drives her home when the party eases to a close because she took a bus there that morning. He’s rented a convertible because “he felt like it,” and the top is down, and all of the trees blur by as they go along the freeway into the city. The wind chills her, but she throws her head back and stretches her arms into the air anyway, and Jeff doesn’t laugh at her. 

They’d danced a little, sort of, earlier, to the Time Warp, but Jeff had concluded that it was a waste of his time and returned to his spot on the corner of the dance floor, smirking superciliously at everyone else as he sipped on punch. Britta hadn’t really cared, boogieing with Troy until her legs were sore, laughing to the point of breathlessness. 

The wind jets through her widely spread fingers and she hums contentedly, closing her eyes. The road is quiet and empty and she can smell rain coming. 

“If you hurt yourself, I’m completely exempt from any responsibility,” he drones, his amusement blatant. “Since, you know, you know the risk you’re taking, being a Britta and all.” 

“You’re hilarious,” she says stiffly, not letting the smile vacillate. Jeff snorts. 

When they pull up to the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, the dwindling sound of the motor seems to rumble in the pit of her stomach as she undoes her seatbelt and lingers in the passenger seat with one hand on the door. 

She stares at Jeff. He stares back. 

“Well, I guess I’ll be going,” he says at the same time she blurts out, “Just come upstairs.” 

He raises his eyebrows at her and she sneers pointedly at him, clambering out of the car. She hears one of the doors shut behind her and Jeff’s footsteps click along the concrete, and she forces herself not to smile as she fumbles around for the key to open the door. 

He halts behind her on the stoop and rests his mouth against the back of her head, inhaling slowly through his nose. She shivers and swings the door open, and they walk up three flights of stairs because elevators make Jeff uncomfortable, and the rickety door to her apartment is flung open and they step inside in unison and then his hands are on her back and he’s kissing her and she moans against his mouth, furious and pleased and astonished all at once. 

She fists the front of his suit in her hand and he winces, so she rolls her eyes and lets go. 

“You know, you really should wear this more often,” he tells her huskily, pressing his lips to her cheek, her eyebrow, her temple. “It really does wonders for – your legs…”

“In your dreams, Winger,” she scoffs, sliding her knee between his legs. He groans and takes her mouth in his again, sloppy, entirely un-Winger, spit and teeth and uneven breaths. She tugs at his hair. 

One of her cats yowls but they pay it no mind, making their way to the bedroom with startling rapidity, Britta swiftly unbuttoning Jeff’s suit jacket and… folding it carefully before hanging it on the back of a chair. He grins at her and she raises an eyebrow dryly, grabbing him by the face and engulfing his lips, his taste; his tongue, scrambling out against hers, the bare scrape of his five-o’clock shadow. 

His shirt is off, somehow. His tie, too. She lowers her hands and spreads her fingers over his chest, his drumming heart. 

Something occurs to her, then. She steps back and takes the lasso off of its holster, and, keeping her eyes on Jeff’s, languidly steps in a circle about him, wrapping the rope around his lower torso. He gazes dazedly at her when she comes to a halt in front of him, twiddling the rest of the rope around her index finger as she bites her lip and sizes him up.

“Okay, so you know the deal with this,” she says breezily. “Lasso of Truth. Honesty is inescapable, even for you, Mr. Lawyer. So.”

Her smile loses its mischief and softens, and she lowers her segment of the golden rope. Jeff watches her expectantly. 

“What’s our deal?” she asks. 

“Same thing it usually is,” he replies immediately. “Whatever the hell we’re in the mood for.” 

She nods, satisfied. 

“And how’re you feeling?” 

“I’m scared shitless,” he tells her, earnestly, his eyes a little wider. “But this is – something I really want.” 

Britta’s mind lapses into fuzzy blue, and she shifts her weight silently from one foot to the other, rendered astoundingly speechless. Screw Jeff Winger for being able to do this to her. Screw Jeff Winger for growing up, for changing, for tasting so nice. Screw Jeff Winger. Right here. Right now. No sheets attached.

She blinks, startled, when she feels something touch her wrist, and jerks her head down to see that Jeff has stepped forward and circled a small segment of the rope around her forearm. 

“Your turn.” He’s smirking, like he’s just won something. “Tell me, Britta. How are  _you_ feeling? Not just in general. About this. About me.” 

Britta opens and closes her mouth a few times, and Jeff runs his thumb across her lower lip at one point, looking drowsy. She swallows, dryly, her heart shivering down between her ribs.

“I’m…” she croaks, and then takes a deep breath to steady herself. “Well, I’m never scared, like, of anything, but… this is… something I think I want, too.”

“Britta…” he warns her, raising an eyebrow.

“This is something I know I want,” she whispers, and the teasing in his expression vanishes in one small instant. A car passes by outside, the pale yellow of its headlights sliding across the ceiling, broken into fractions by the windowpane. “But I swear to God, Winger, if you try to hurt me, I’m breaking your neck.”

He snickers.  _Snickers_. 

“God. That’s adorable. Really. Just the fact that you think you could pull that  _off_ —”

As he’s speaking, his hands are in the process of undoing her zipper and engaging in some pulling off of their own, and she shuts him right the hell up when she snatches his mouth up and bites his upper lip and pulls his hips against hers, and she doesn’t mind, for the first time in her life, how terrified she is. It’s the good kind of terrified, the kind that makes her bones buzz and siphons the breath out of her instant-by-instant, touch-by-touch, and of course she’s scared, of course, of course—it’s Halloween. 

Things have changed. For once, Britta Perry is already ahead of them. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be all Annie/Abed but then Jeff and Britta just stomped all over it and that was that! Oh well. At least I didn't make an Annie Hathaway joke.


End file.
